We Leave Together, стр. 25

Jona stepped out of the alley. He waved the two king’s men over to him. With his hands, he urged them to ignore Djoss.Jona pulled the king’s men into a dark alley, beside the hidden hookahhouse.

The night shift king’s men asked Jona if he knew what the fellow throwing himself over the wall was about. Jona said the fellow got thrown there by a bouncer, and he was nothing to nobody, and just trying to get back to the hookah.

The night shift king’s men asked what Jona was doing there. Jona pointed at the house. He told them that Corporal Jaime of Calipari’s crew was inside, in plain clothes, and cheese-for-brains at a hookah after his wife and child had died. “Somebody should do something about it, yeah?” Jona had said. “He’s gone to the other side forever if he’s at the hookahs. The king will never get him back from this.”

The three king’s men nodded all around. Their faces were grim like blood monkeys. This unanimous decision came to them all at the same time.

People sucking on hookahs never came back. Every king’s man knew that. Eaters could come back. Pipers might make it if they were forced to it and strong. The people at the hookahs were walking dead, paying every coin for the privilege.

The three king’s men braced the back and side doors closed with crates and trash jammed into doorknobs and hinges. Jona and one of the night shifters took a corner in the back so they could watch for men jumping out alley windows.

One of the night shift king’s men tugged his bell out of the lapel pocket in his jacket. His partner stepped into the front door, pulling at the pocket with the bell. Jona tugged his bell out, too. They waited until they were all ready and holding a bat in their hands, or a long, sharp tooth. Their man was inside, and everyone inside was rolling tonight to get him off the street.

Jona swung his bell first. It clanged like a cow’s, but with a harder edge to the sound, like the bell might crack a skull in a pinch. Then, the other king’s men rang their bells.

The king’s men all over the district and beyond it heard and rang bells, all running to the center of the clanging sound.

Bodies banged into doors, but they were all braced shut from the outside. Some men tried for windows, but Jona and the other king’s man knocked them back with bats or the blunt edge of swords before anyone got out.

Every king’s man in earshot came in minutes swinging bats and swords and bells that called every other king’s man in a wider ear shot and every man, woman, and child in that building got surrounded and then the king’s men went inside and pulled every soul to the station houses.

And Jaime was in there, laughing when they pulled him out, unable to speak.

***

The night sergeant clomped Jona on the back. “You must be stamped, Corporal—rolling hard since daylight and now morning’s back again.”

Jona pretended to yawn. He shrugged. “Send me to Elishta, Sergeant. All the same to me. Work is work.”

The sergeant scribbled a note to Calipari about all that had transpired. “Take the morning off. Get some sleep, and come in for lunch shift. I’ll make two of my scriveners work the morning to cover for you and Jaime a while. We’re too short right now to give you all day, and we got too much paperwork after that little thing we did tonight to send too many scriveners walking about.”

Jona saluted. “I never needed much sleep, sir,” he said, “I’ll make it in early so your boy is back tomorrow night.”

“I bet Calipari’ll want to know exactly what happened, from your mouth,” said the sergeant.

“What happened is what happened.”

“Wish it hadn’t on my watch,” said the night sergeant. “I knew they were looking for Jaime the other day out in the tombs below the temple, with his kids resting and he can’t afford a decent funeral for them out on the bay. He crossed over, took money for something he shouldn’t have and spent bad coin on bad. He should’ve spent it sending his kids to the water. Maybe could’ve looked away from him on that one a little while if his reasons were right.”

“We didn’t know they were looking for Jaime,” said Jona, “We knew they were looking for somebody, but we didn’t know it was Jaime.”

The night sergeant nodded. “Right,” he said, “and you find him at a hookah in the middle of the night even though you didn’t know we were looking for him, and you rang down the bells clear in the head and not a drop of drink in you?”

“Something like that,” said Jona.

“You want to be sergeant when Calipari’s through, or you still after that lieutenant’s fleur?”

“I hadn’t been thinking about any of that stuff in a while. Just been doing the job, walking about and staying on the king’s business.”

“You think about it, Corporal. I know you want the fleur, but no reason not to be a sergeant a while first. Geek’s not sneaky like you are. We hear things about you always turning up. We hear rumblings in the room that the worst people in the city are scared of you turning up to rumble, and we all hear about it. You know your way around, day or night. It’s useful is what that is.”

“I think Calipari wants Geek, and I think Calipari’s right. Geek’s better with the privates.” Jona pointed at the scriveners. “Geek’s a good boy. He’s cleaner. My hands get dirty, Sergeant.”

“Geek is no cleaner than any of us,” said the night sergeant. “Calipari’s been at this longer than I have. Longer than anybody I know. If anyone has good judgment it’s him. I’m just saying about how us on the night crew like our boys sneaky, and clean